Pi Humor

It's been a while since my last post--nearly two weeks! Unfortunately, I haven't visited many blogs, either. I've just been unusually busy with different things, working out really hard and consequently falling asleep earlier than usual at night. I hope to catch up on my blog hopping this week and get some posts up here as well. In the meantime, a quick post to celebrate Pi Day, which is today!

March 14 was established as Pi Day in 1989 by physicist Larry Shaw to commemorate the mathematical constant pi, the date chosen because the first three significant figures of pi are 3, 1, and 4 which are represented by the date 3/14. In 2015, the first five figures of pi will be represented by the date 3/14/15.

How does one celebrate Pi Day? Discuss pi and eat pie, of course!

I'm making yummy Curry Chicken Pot Pie for dinner tonight. As for discussing pi, ponder this:

What do you get when you cut a jack o'lantern by its diameter?

Pumpkin Pi.

:)



Info gathered from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pi_Day.

My Personal Reading Stats for 2008 . . . . and Reading Challenges for 2009

My Reading Stats for 2008
When I looked back to reflect on the books I read last year for My Favorite Books of 2008 post, I decided to take a closer look at my personal reading stats. 

Note the following simple chart:

Number of Books Read Per Month (2008)

Month: #Books Read:
Jan. 3
Feb. 7
Mar. 10
Apr. 5
May 3
June 4
July 10
Aug. 4
Sept. 8
Oct. 4
Nov. 1
Dec. 2
TOTAL: 61

Mean: 5 Books
Median: 4 Books
Mode: 4 Books

Very interesting. This is what I discovered:

On one hand, you can look at the number of books I read each month and it looks like my reading patterns were all over the place! Reading anywhere from ONE to TEN books in one month is pretty erratic if you ask me.

However . . . if you look at the measures of central tendency, my reading patterns are practically a "normal" distribution! 

    

Um. Okay, so maybe that's not that funny, but it is kind of neat how the mean, median, and mode are so close. When those three measures of central tendency are the same, it means that I'm most likely to read four books in a month, but in any given month, I'm equally likely to read more than four books as I am likely to read less than four books. I think. And you know what that means? It means I need to read more this year. Okay, that I pulled from where the sun doesn't shine.

Anyway, I read a total of 61 books in 2008, which averages out to reading about 1.17 books a week or about 5.08 books a month. That number really isn't too bad considering that in 2006, the typical American was reading four books per year (courtesy of www.npr.org, All Things Considered.). So on average, I read more books in one month than the typical American reads in a whole year. Still, it's usually more prudent to read more books in a month than you buy. Isn't it?

Something else that I observed from my reflection on last year's reads that isn't revealed in those stats is that I actually read books from a wider variety of genres. In 2008, I actually deviated from my normal paranormal fixation and read quite a few urban fantasy novels and contemporary romances, a few historical romances, a few romantic suspense novels, a touch of straight fantasy, and I even went back to pre-romance reading days and read a handful of young adult fiction. I hope to continue this pattern this year as well. 

Reading Challenges for 2009

To encourage myself to read more in 2009, and to help whittle down my TBR pile (ha!), I joined a few Reading Challenges this year. 

In March of last year, I joined the TBR Reading Challenge hosted by Keishon at the avidbookreader.com blog. I did well the first four months, but failed to follow through the last several months. I was disappointed that I didn't keep up, and now my TBR pile is bigger than ever, so I rejoined Keishon's TBR Reading Challenge 2009 and am determined to complete it this time. To learn more about this challenge, visit Keishon at the avidbookreader.com.

I also joined the Year of the Category Reading Challenge hosted by Kmont at Lurv à la Mode. Kmont mentioned late last year that she was going to resolve to read more category romance in 2009 and I coerced pressured encouraged her to organize a Category Reading Challenge and she did!!! So of course, then I had to join. Talk about pressure. To learn more about this challenge, visit Kmont at Lurv à la Mode. 

Last, but not least, I joined a Contemporary Romance Reading Challenge hosted by Brie at Musings of a Bibliophile. I already have several contemporary romances at the top of my TBR pile that I've been itching to read, plus a few MUST BUYS for 2009 (Smooth Talking Stranger by Lisa Kleypas, Too Good To Be True by Kristan Higgins, anything by Megan Hart ... ), so I figure I may as well join Brie's challenge in order to keep my head in the game. To learn more about this challenge, visit Brie at Musings of a Bibliophile. 

I was actually contemplating organizing a Young Adult Reading Challenge, but thought it might be kind of lame if the only participants were me, Thea and DarlingDiva. LOL! 

Did you join any Reading Challenges for 2009? What are some of your reading goals for 2009?